Post by Frederic Bourgault-Christie on Feb 8, 2006 15:35:26 GMT -5
Why am I posting this? Because I can. So fuck off.
I miss the 80s. I miss virtually everything about it. Even the wacky fashion was awesome. The only thing I don't miss is Reagan, and the whole "death squads in Central America/invasion of Lebanon" thing. but hey, every decade has its black spots. I miss leather jackets, hair that can provide shelter for a group of orphans, and real punk. Nowadays all we have are bands that go "Dun dun dun dun" and have lyrics like "I'M A TEENAGER/WITHOUT A JOB OR RESPONSIBILITIES/BUT MY LIFE SUCKS/SO I WILL EAT CENTIPEDES!", except with markedly less musical merit. Worse, every one of these fucking bands, whether it be Linkin Park or Korn, has a lead singer who is lanky as all get out and has a voice that oscillates between "what would be a crooner if he was Frank Sinatra and not some lame kid" and "incoherent yelling", the worst combination of teenage angst. If I wanted to hear teenage kids whine about their problems, I'd throw firebombs at their house. You don't deserve food, you fucking munchkins.
No, in the 1980s, it was considered perfectly normal for a record label to up and say "What? You want to make an album about a dystopian future society where a kid finds a guitar and thus saves humanity? Well, why the hell not? Doesn't sound ridiculous to me." Everything was a combination of He-Man, Lord of the Rings, and Equilibrium. Even better, there was just this belief held by the whole nation that, if someone could just rock long enough and hard enough, that we could finally solve global warming, cure cancer and destroy the career of the evil dean. The best theme albums came out in the 80s, and only recently with such pioneers as Deltron Zero have we recovered.
Hell, even the fucking MOVIES worked by that premise. What was Bill and Ted's fundamental core plot point? No, not time travel, dumbass. The idea that two kids could with the spirit of rock and witty catchphrases insure a future utopia (unless of course one got sent to MILITARY SCHOOL! *dun dun dun!*). And not just a utopia where people are fed and the water's clean. No, this is one where elevator muzak has been replaced by power serenades and where everyone wears bitching clothes and where George Carlin is still funny.
Action movies were the same. Instead of rocking hard enough, the protagonist just had to be badass, implacable and unstoppable enough. The less attention he paid to tactics and the more attention he paid to making the most catastrophic explosions, the better. (That's why Rocky lost fights: no explosions, some strategy, sometimes he'd fall to the might of Mr. T or that Russian dude who played Ivan Drago).
And the video games? God forbid they make sense. Premises varied from "Save a princess from a mutated turtle you high-jumpin' freak of nature" to "Are you a bad enough dude to..." Your rewards varied from a hamburger to ending credits filled with brightly colored enemies walking around.
So what I was wondering was, "What if the real world was like the '80s imagined it was?"
Imagine a cadre of nuclear scientists sitting around a table. They are reviewing proposals to eliminate nuclear waste. Finally, the oldest of them all throws the plans against the wall in an unremitting rage. "We've tried everything! Oh, mankind's folly!" Then the young scientist looks up with a combination of inspiration and audacity. "Not everything." The scientists gasp in surprise. So they get old Metallica, old Bad Religion, Ted Nugent, Freddie Mercury, that guy from the Scorpions, and, I dunno, fucking Van Halen to line up with the longest hair they can muster outside the complex holding the world's nuclear waste. Mankind watches in bated breath as amps are hooked up and the power rock begins. The evil power of the radiation rises up as a clawed fist but is destroyed by the POWER OF ROCK. Then the door is opened, fog pours out, and all the world's nuclear waste are... cassettes!
Or if we need to invade a country and eliminate an evil dictator. We don't do something as pedestrian as sending an army, no, that's crazy talk. We find some Philosophy professor who used to be the world's GREATEST INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY, oil him up real well, force him to fight without a shirt, and arm him with our nation's greatest M-60s, machetes and rotary saw blades, then tell him his daughter's been kidnapped by the dictator. We could have world peace in a year, enforced by impossibly muscular men who always get the girl and can turn the average tool shed into a nuclear armada.
This is why we adopt my proposal to create a Mandatory Rock Requirement. If a band does not rock to a sufficient level, they are summarily executed. Moreover, we replace every white corporate executive with black men in gold suits sitting in spas all day surrounded by giant golden statues of James Brown.
I miss the 80s. I miss virtually everything about it. Even the wacky fashion was awesome. The only thing I don't miss is Reagan, and the whole "death squads in Central America/invasion of Lebanon" thing. but hey, every decade has its black spots. I miss leather jackets, hair that can provide shelter for a group of orphans, and real punk. Nowadays all we have are bands that go "Dun dun dun dun" and have lyrics like "I'M A TEENAGER/WITHOUT A JOB OR RESPONSIBILITIES/BUT MY LIFE SUCKS/SO I WILL EAT CENTIPEDES!", except with markedly less musical merit. Worse, every one of these fucking bands, whether it be Linkin Park or Korn, has a lead singer who is lanky as all get out and has a voice that oscillates between "what would be a crooner if he was Frank Sinatra and not some lame kid" and "incoherent yelling", the worst combination of teenage angst. If I wanted to hear teenage kids whine about their problems, I'd throw firebombs at their house. You don't deserve food, you fucking munchkins.
No, in the 1980s, it was considered perfectly normal for a record label to up and say "What? You want to make an album about a dystopian future society where a kid finds a guitar and thus saves humanity? Well, why the hell not? Doesn't sound ridiculous to me." Everything was a combination of He-Man, Lord of the Rings, and Equilibrium. Even better, there was just this belief held by the whole nation that, if someone could just rock long enough and hard enough, that we could finally solve global warming, cure cancer and destroy the career of the evil dean. The best theme albums came out in the 80s, and only recently with such pioneers as Deltron Zero have we recovered.
Hell, even the fucking MOVIES worked by that premise. What was Bill and Ted's fundamental core plot point? No, not time travel, dumbass. The idea that two kids could with the spirit of rock and witty catchphrases insure a future utopia (unless of course one got sent to MILITARY SCHOOL! *dun dun dun!*). And not just a utopia where people are fed and the water's clean. No, this is one where elevator muzak has been replaced by power serenades and where everyone wears bitching clothes and where George Carlin is still funny.
Action movies were the same. Instead of rocking hard enough, the protagonist just had to be badass, implacable and unstoppable enough. The less attention he paid to tactics and the more attention he paid to making the most catastrophic explosions, the better. (That's why Rocky lost fights: no explosions, some strategy, sometimes he'd fall to the might of Mr. T or that Russian dude who played Ivan Drago).
And the video games? God forbid they make sense. Premises varied from "Save a princess from a mutated turtle you high-jumpin' freak of nature" to "Are you a bad enough dude to..." Your rewards varied from a hamburger to ending credits filled with brightly colored enemies walking around.
So what I was wondering was, "What if the real world was like the '80s imagined it was?"
Imagine a cadre of nuclear scientists sitting around a table. They are reviewing proposals to eliminate nuclear waste. Finally, the oldest of them all throws the plans against the wall in an unremitting rage. "We've tried everything! Oh, mankind's folly!" Then the young scientist looks up with a combination of inspiration and audacity. "Not everything." The scientists gasp in surprise. So they get old Metallica, old Bad Religion, Ted Nugent, Freddie Mercury, that guy from the Scorpions, and, I dunno, fucking Van Halen to line up with the longest hair they can muster outside the complex holding the world's nuclear waste. Mankind watches in bated breath as amps are hooked up and the power rock begins. The evil power of the radiation rises up as a clawed fist but is destroyed by the POWER OF ROCK. Then the door is opened, fog pours out, and all the world's nuclear waste are... cassettes!
Or if we need to invade a country and eliminate an evil dictator. We don't do something as pedestrian as sending an army, no, that's crazy talk. We find some Philosophy professor who used to be the world's GREATEST INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY, oil him up real well, force him to fight without a shirt, and arm him with our nation's greatest M-60s, machetes and rotary saw blades, then tell him his daughter's been kidnapped by the dictator. We could have world peace in a year, enforced by impossibly muscular men who always get the girl and can turn the average tool shed into a nuclear armada.
This is why we adopt my proposal to create a Mandatory Rock Requirement. If a band does not rock to a sufficient level, they are summarily executed. Moreover, we replace every white corporate executive with black men in gold suits sitting in spas all day surrounded by giant golden statues of James Brown.
